10 Atlassian Tool Hacks to Improve Team Culture

Sherif Mansour

Principal Product Manager, Atlassian

Sherif Mansour

Principal Product Manager, Atlassian

Sherif Mansour has 14 years of experience in software development. He is currently a Principal Product Manager for Atlassian responsible for the cloud platform. Sherif thinks building simple products is hard and so is writing a simple, short bio.

Your team is already running along with JIRA, Confluence, or HipChat enabling you to deliver awesome projects. But can they help you with team culture? How can you use the tools your team already has in place to cultivate an innovative and open culture?

This talk will cover different ways to use JIRA and Confluence to hack your team culture. We will give you tips on how to use Atlassian to make large organizations feel like small teams, build and maintain an innovative culture, and inject some fun and humor into your team - making your workplace feel a bit more enjoyable!

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Brick by Brick: Building Collaboration at The New York Times

Matthew Shadbolt

Director of Real Estate Products, The New York Times

Matthew Shadbolt

Director of Real Estate Products, The New York Times

Matthew Shadbolt is currently the Director of Real Estate Products at The New York Times, where he is focused on the cross-platform strategic and tactical value build of the real estate section. He works closely with the newsroom, sales, design, engineering, mobile, video and business development teams to bring real estate editorial and search experiences to an audience of over 2 million readers every month. Over the past 2 years, the category's audience has more than tripled, and lead generation has increased by over 400%. Prior to his current role, Matthew was the Director of Interactive Product and Marketing for The Corcoran Group, Manhattan’s largest residential real estate brokerage, where he was responsible for all of Corcoran’s interactive output, product development, social growth and advertising.

Katherine McMahan

Project Manager, Real Estate Products, The New York Times

Katherine McMahan

Project Manager, Real Estate Products, The New York Times

More details coming soon.

The New York Times has undergone enormous digital changes in recent years, especially in the Real Estate section. With innovative uses of Confluence and JIRA, including by a distributed development team in India, Finland, Romania, and New York, the NYT Real Estate team has helped the newsroom and sales teams align around a common purpose, and built experiences which have significantly grown both audience and revenue. Come hear the NYT Real Estate team share their journey, and how Confluence has been instrumental in connecting teams, sharing insights and delighting their readers.

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Bundeswehr Blueprint: A Collaboration Platform for the German Military

Nils Merkle

Captain, German Armed Forces

Nils Merkle

Captain, German Armed Forces

In the year 2003 after finishing school, Nils Merkle had to follow the general conscription and started his basic training for German Armed Forces military service in Bayreuth. After three months he decided to change into the officers career and studied computer science at the German Armed Forces University in Munich. After five years as a Tactical Control Officer and Executive Officer in different PATRIOT wings and on the ACTIVE FENCE TURKEY mission he took over the German Armed Forces Wiki-Service in 2015. Since then, his days are filled with supporting, teaching and consulting the Bundeswehr on how to use Confluence and how to work digital.

It's true – even the Bundeswehr uses Confluence to organize their work. In fact, they use it for a great deal of their collaboration, coordination, and communication. But convincing the German Armed Forces to go digital with their knowledge base was no easy feat. In this talk, Nils Merkle, Air Force Captain, will recount how a team of four Confluence evangelists promoted social collaboration in a hierarchical environment through tactics like phone support, on-site seminars, and biannual community meetings. Come hear Bundeswehr insights, use cases, and best practices that can help any organization maximize Confluence's potential. And, of course, some funny stories that came about along the way.

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Don't be Left Out: Tips for Working in a Remote Team

Adam Hynes

Senior Developer, Atlassian

Adam Hynes

Senior Developer, Atlassian

Adam is a Senior Engineer at Atlassian. Since graduating with a degree in software development in 2006, he has wandered the globe, funding his lavish lifestyle by thinking a lot about code, and sometimes actually writing it too. He's also dabbled with leading teams here and there. His dream is to one day pair-program with Uncle Bob, but he'd be happy to pair with you if you ask him nicely and don't prefer tabs over spaces.

Working with a team on the other side of the world can be a lonely, frustrating experience. But with the right attitude, practices, and tools, it still can be an effective way to build software with others. Hear from Atlassian developer, Adam Hynes on how he moved to the other side of the world and stayed productive (and sane) without changing teams.

Learn how he uses tools such as Floobits for real-time remote pairing, Confluence for white-boarding hard problems with distant teammates, and HipChat for asynchronous stand-ups to keep the team on the same page across timezones.

You'll come away with several remote working tips that'll set you up for success.

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How to Drive Confluence Adoption

John Wetenhall

Strategy & Operations Manager, Confluence, Atlassian

John Wetenhall

Strategy & Operations Manager, Confluence, Atlassian

John began his career working on a fledgling start up in San Francisco straight out of university. Two startups later he landed at Atlassian where he started out in product marketing for Confluence and helped launch Confluence Questions. He's since moved on to Strategy & Operations for Confluence where he works on Confluence product and business strategy. John brings passion for the customer to every debate and is passionate about getting more done with Agile (yes, even in marketing). When not at the office, John is an avid surfer, runner and music fan. Get in touch on Twitter - @jwetenhall

Do you want to bring your team closer together and improve collaboration throughout your company? Perhaps you see the value of implementing Confluence across every team for work and content collaboration, but your colleagues are stuck emailing files back and forth. John will show you four techniques to help drive adoption of Confluence across your organization that will build and scale your company culture at the same time. You'll learn practical ways to work more efficiently such as how to run better meetings and iterate on files without drowning in emails and really_long_file_names_JW.docx, plus fun ways to engage co-workers with intro blogs. Your colleagues will thank you for saving them from email and your boss will promote you for building company culture. (Promotion not guaranteed :) )

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Not Me, We. How Inclusive and Diverse Teams Represent the Future

Dom Price

Head of R&D and Work Futurist, Atlassian

Dom Price

Head of R&D and Work Futurist, Atlassian

More details coming soon.

Aubrey Blanche

Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Atlassian

Aubrey Blanche

Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Atlassian

Aubrey Blanche is the Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion at Atlassian. There, she works with teams across the business to enhance access to technical education, recruiting, retention, and career mobility for underrepresented minorities. She relies on social science research and methodologies to understand the psychological and structural barriers to achieving full representation and inclusion. This research allows her to design effective interventions and programs that create equal opportunities for all Atlassian employees. She works with partners across the tech industry to define new standards for company transparency, reporting, and investment in diversity & inclusion. She believes that leading with empathy is the key to driving meaningful, sustainable change and creating highly effective teams.

Turns out, great minds don't always think alike. Teams created with an eye toward diversity–including different perspectives, experiences, and ways of solving problems–and brought together in inclusive environments, represent the future of innovation. But how?

In this talk, you'll find out. This session discusses the business and science of diverse, inclusive teams. But instead of focusing on theory and case studies, two different people will demonstrate the power of diverse thinking... live. That is, our presenters will identify potential solutions to real business challenges in real time, while you watch. You'll see diverse ways of thinking in action, and how they lead to more ideas, more effective collaboration, and better solutions.

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The Key to Great Teams: Understanding the Human Operating System

Stefan Knecht

Manager, it-economics GmbH

Stefan Knecht

Manager, it-economics GmbH

Stefan Knecht spent half a life in product- and platform development, consulting in strategy, technology and operations in diversification and convergence settings. As a project and team lead and co-founder of a (failed) geo-data startup he carries insights in small and larger organizations. He is a Psychologist, trained Scrum Master, Product Owner and father of three girls.

How do organizations become adaptive, agile, and resilient? What fosters trust and makes people feel safe to speak their minds? Stefan Knecht from it-economics – a 2016 Best Workplaces in Germany award recipient – say the master key lies in a social operating system used for over 300,000 years: the human operating system (OS H). Recent findings from behavioral, cognitive, and organizational sciences help us understand parts of this system – like what makes humans tick and how groups successfully form and perform. This talk will explain the idea behind OS H and teach you how you can employ the concept in your own organization to build trust, resiliency, adaptivity, etc. Come away with a solid understanding of social needs and the company dynamics you can help create to meet these needs. Even the best tools and technology will only get you part of the way to building world-class teams.

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The Team Playbook: A Recipe for Healthy Teams

Dom Price

Head of R&D and Work Futurist, Atlassian

Dom Price

Head of R&D and Work Futurist, Atlassian

More details coming soon.

Georgie Bottomley

Senior UX Research, Atlassian

Georgie Bottomley

Senior UX Research, Atlassian

Georgie currently works as a Senior UX Researcher for Atlassian, trying to make JIRA & Bitbucket better for teams using it. Previous to Atlassian she has worked in London, Manchester (where she started Ladies that UX) and New York. Ladies that UX is an international organisation of women that work in UX. Georgie also established Talk UX, the first UX conference with an all-female line up. Georgie was recognised as one of the top women in tech under 30 by The Drum.

The benefits of a high performing team are endless. They are autonomous, empowered, responsible and effective. At Atlassian, we've pioneered the Team Playbook, which is our way of scaling teams by getting smarter, not bigger, and driving a culture of continual improvement. Utilised by hundreds of teams within Atlassian, we've made our secret sauce not so secret. Don't come to this session for a lesson on theory...come to this session to hear the philosophies and principles of the Team Playbook from Dr. Dom, our internal team doctor, and insightful and practical stories from Georgie, one of our users of the Team Playbook. You'll leave this session invigorated, engaged and ready to take action.

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Top 5 Meeting Tips Made Possible by JIRA and Confluence

Mary Raleigh

Strategy & Operations Team Lead, Atlassian

Mary Raleigh

Strategy & Operations Team Lead, Atlassian

As Strategy and Operations Team Lead, Mary currently drives the creation and communication of strategy across Atlassian's product teams including JIRA Core, JIRA Portfolio, JIRA Service Desk, Confluence and StatusPage. Prior to Atlassian, Mary was a Management Consultant, Community Organizer, Entertainment Marketer, Personal Stylist, and on her good days, an aspiring Entrepreneur. When not strategizing and operating, Mary is known for planning offsites, planning dinner parties, planning trips around the world and planning what she is going to wear next Wednesday.

John Wetenhall

Strategy & Operations Manager, Confluence, Atlassian

John Wetenhall

Strategy & Operations Manager, Confluence, Atlassian

John began his career working on a fledgling start up in San Francisco straight out of university. Two startups later he landed at Atlassian where he started out in product marketing for Confluence and helped launch Confluence Questions. He's since moved on to Strategy & Operations for Confluence where he works on Confluence product and business strategy. John brings passion for the customer to every debate and is passionate about getting more done with Agile (yes, even in marketing). When not at the office, John is an avid surfer, runner and music fan. Get in touch on Twitter - @jwetenhall

Meetings have become a necessary evil of corporate life. They are essential to working together as a team, but they can easily become a waste of time and leave attendees with no clear outcomes. In fact, the average employee wastes over 30 hours each month in unproductive meetings. John and Mary are meeting gurus who have facilitated everything from sprint planning meetings to all-day strategy sessions for executives. Whether you run meetings or just want to take back your calendar, you'll learn our tried and tested rules for effective meetings for both attendees and facilitators. Plus, discover 5 ways JIRA and Confluence help you take meetings from painful to productive.

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Trello and Atlassian: Powered-Up, Ready to go!

Rich Manalang

Partner Engineering Team Lead, Atlassian

Rich Manalang

Partner Engineering Team Lead, Atlassian

More details coming soon.

Power-Up your Trello-fu with the new JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, and HipChat integrations. This talk will show the full power of Trello along with the Atlassian stack. Partner Engineering lead, Rich Manalang will show how a simple Trello board can be enhanced to support your Atlassian workflow needs from conception to planning and code to deployment while keeping everyone in the collaboration loop.

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